ERC approves construction of Quezon province power substation
September 20, 2016
from Business Mirror
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has approved the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines’s (NGCP) application for the construction of a P3.6-billion substation in Quezon province.
In approving NGCP’s application on September 13, the ERC took note of the importance of the proposed Pagbilao EHV Substation, saying the facility would allow the connection of incoming power plants with a total capacity of 2,720 megawatts (MW).
These are the 420-MW Pagbilao coal-fired power-plant expansion; the 500-MW San Buenaventura Power Ltd. Co.; the 3×200-MW Energy World liquefied natural-gas power plant; and the 1,200-MW Atimonan coal-fired power plant.
“The approval of NGCP’s Pagbilao EHV Substation will enable it to adequately serve the needs and demands of generation companies, distribution utilities and suppliers requiring transmission service and ancillary services through the transmission system,” the ERC chief added.
Moreover, the project would also address the overloading of the Tayabas 500- to 230-kilovolt (kV) transformers and the fault-level issue at Tayabas 230-kV substation.
The province of Quezon hosts two of the major power plants in the Luzon grid—the 735-MW Pagbilao and the 460-MW Quezon Power— which are both coal-fired.
These two are connected to the Tayabas 2,400-megavolt amperes 230/500 substation that is linked to 500-kV backbone and stretches to Dasmariñas Substation in Cavite, which serves as a drawdown substation for the loads in the south of Metro Manila.
The Tayabas substation is also connected to San Jose substation in Bulacan that completes the link between the north and south 500-kV corridors. The southern portion of the 500-kV transmission backbone stretches from Tayabas, Quezon, to Naga, Camarines Sur.
The ERC’s approval of the Pagbilao EHV Substation entailed certain conditions: The proposed project shall be subject to optimization based on its actual need and/or implementation under the performance-based rate system to determine the extent of the value that will be included in the rate base of NGCP; NGCP to conduct competitive bidding for the purchase of major materials in the implementation of the proposed projects; and NGCP to pay the corresponding permit fee required.
